"Art Now and Then" does not mean art occasionally. It means art NOW as opposed to art THEN. It means art in 2019 as compared to art many years ago...sometimes many, many, MANY years ago. It is an attempt to make that art relevant now, letting artists back then speak to us now in the hope that we may better understand them, and in so doing, better understand ourselves and the art produced today.
Over the past five or six years I've been writing about the world of art, now and then. I've tried to cover as many different nationalities and geographic nooks and crannies as the world has to offer. The results have been uneven. My coverage of North American, and European art (that which I know best) has been, I think, reasonably thorough, if not always illuminating. To a lesser extent I've tried to cover South American and Australian art and artist. In both cases I've been less thorough and less illuminating. But where I've really failed is in dealing with Asian and especially oriental art. However, while I'm on this self-criticism kick, I should note that the global area of creative endeavor in which I've been most lacking is the entire continent of Africa--especially the subcontinent. I could make excuses, many of them quite valid, most having to do with extreme poverty, war, famine, pestilence--basically the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Such conditions do not lend themselves to the production of fine art or the establishment of a flourishing art market to support it. In essence, survival trumps creativity every time. Having said that, today I want to highlight a country in east-central Africa which not only has a long, historic, tradition of artistic excellence, but is, today attempting to recover the best of that past glory. Specifically I want to bring to light the man who is often thought of as that country's driving force in that effort, the Ethiopian painter, Afewerk Tekle.
The Ethiopian New Year, Afewerk Tekle
A youthful, grandiose self-portrait (left) and years later, the mature artist at work in his studio.
Ethiopia is an arid, landlocked country just west of what's come to be called the "horn of Africa" where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. Afewerk Tekle was born in what was once the capital city of that country, Ankober, located near its very center. The year was 1932. The country was under the heel and hell of the Italians. WW II was in the offing and the country was very much showing previews of coming distractions in that regard. After the war, while still in his teens, Afewerk's parents decided to send him off to London to study mining and engineering in the hope he might return to help rebuild his homeland after decades of fighting and destruction. Though Tekle went off to become an engineer, he came back four years later thor-oughly trained in the finest British traditions as an artist. There are some interesting twists and turns during that period, but that's his story in essence. Stylistically, his Ethiopian New Year (above), would appear to be one of his early works. However dates for Tekle's work are few and far between, and what few there are to be found seem not necessarily reliable.
Defender, Afewerk Tekle
The Maskal Flower, 1959, Afewerk Tekle
Tekle's Maskal Flower (left) dates from 1953, which does seem to be a reliable date. It's one of his first paintings Tekle did upon returning to Ethiopia after his schooling. In 1954 Tekle had his first one-man show in Addis Ababa. Its success gave him the funds to travel around Europe for two years where he mastered the design and construction of stained glass windows. His 1958 stained glass windows in the Africa Hall of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, is titled, The Total Liberation of Africa (top). It is starkly modern yet totally African in style and theme. Tekle's Defender (above), lays heavy emphasis on his Ethiopian style and African content. While in Europe, Tekle also made a special study on Ethiopian illustrated manuscripts in London, Paris, and Rome.
Final Judgment, Afewerk Tekle
Mother Ethiopia, 1963, Afewerk Tekle
To some degree, virtually all of Tekle's works have to do with Ethiopian nationalism, the country's colorful history, its people, its traditions, its ancient Judeo-Christian religion, and its art as related to all of the above. Ethiopia is prominently mentioned by name in the New Test-ament and referenced as the home of the Queen of Sheba in the old testament. Tekle's fidelity to his country's religious background can be seen in his Final Judgment (above) and, somewhat in-directly, in his Mother Ethiopia (right) from 1963. There is no mistaking Tekle's association of his homeland with the mother of Christ even to the point that her physical proportions seem reminiscent of Michelangelo's Vatican Pieta. From the old testament we find Tekle's massive mural titled The Queen of Sheba Meets Solomon, (below). The image is a detail from a high-parallax, upwardly viewed photo, but captures the essence of one of Tekle's most ambitious mural undertakings. Tekle died in 2012 from a severe stomach ulcer. He was eighty years old.
Major General Zachary Taylor, ca. 1848, official White House portrait, Joseph Henry Bush
Zachary Taylor, 1848, James Reid Lambdin, National Portrait gallery
It's probably safe to say that never in the history of the presidency of the United States was there ever a man and his wife more ill-suited for the office than General and Mrs. Zachary Taylor. Born in 1784, today, November 24th, would have been his 231st birthday. General Zach-ary Taylor was more or less drafted by the Whig Party, while his wife was vehemently opposed to her husband becoming Pres-ident. It's said that he was late receiving word from his party that he would be running for the office because he refused to accept mail marked "postage due." As a boy, growing up on the Kentucky frontier, Taylor had only a rudi-mentary education. His writing is said to have been "atrocious" and his spelling and grammar not much better. Starting in 1808, Taylor spent well over half his life as an army officer. He was one of the few Presidents never to attend college. He had few political views and in any case had very little interest in politics. Until elected president in 1848, he'd never even voted, much less held elective office. In those days, those qualities were seen as assets. He was against the spread of slavery to the western territories though he, in fact, had owned as many as 200 slaves himself at one time. Given the political realities of the period, those factors were also seen as assets. Only with great reluctance did Margaret (Peggy) Taylor follow her husband to Washington and, due to ill health, seldom took on the duties of First Lady, delegating them to her daughter, Betty Taylor Bliss (bottom). The official White House portrait of President Zachary Taylor by Joseph Henry Bush (above) from 1848, reflects this lifetime of military service, the only White House portrait to depict a president in military uniform,
Zachary Taylor (detail), 1863, G.P.A. Healy
President Zachary Taylor, 1850, John Vanderlyn
President Zachary Taylor was not what you'd call a portrait painter's dream subject. In fact, he had one of the homeliest (only a mother could love) faces to ever hold that office. Joseph Henry Bush made no attempt to mitigate Taylor's war-torn countenance. Thankfully, James Reid Lambdin did. His portrait of Taylor now in the National Portrait Gallery (above, right), was also painted in 1848, While not likely to win any beauty contests, he at least softens the man's well-lined face, erasing years from his image. The same could be said of John Vanderlyn's 1850 portrait of Taylor (right), although Vanderlyn pushes the flattery envelop to the point that his likeness of the President suffers. It's a tribute to the quintessential presidential portrait painter, George Peter Alexander Healy, that his portrait of Taylor (above), though making no obvious attempt to flatter the man, and painted some thirteen years after his death, is arguably the best of the four.
General Taylor's etched media images. His horse, Whitey, retired in old age to the White House lawn, where hair from his tail provided souvenirs for visiting tourists.
President Zachary Taylor had pretty much an average number of portraits painted and photographs taken to document his presence in the White House. His wife, on the other hand, had none. Even her "official" White House portrait can only be termed "dubious" at best. The officially White House posting is at lower right in the grouping below. The illustration of Margaret Taylor is from "Presiding Ladies of the White House," by Lila G. A. Woolfall, was published in 1903 by the Bureau of National Literature and Art, Washington, D. C. This is merely a suggested likeness, as no portrait or photograph of her is known to exist. There are a couple photos purporting to be of the First Lady, but they two are doubtful. As you can see below, none of the three bear much resemblance to one another. This lacking of a likeness is quite likely the result of Taylor's relatively brief span as President. Elected in 1848, sworn in on March 4, 1849, Taylor died in July, 1850, becoming the second President to die in office (William Henry Harrison was the first). The sixty-five-year-old president died unexpectedly of gastroenteritis (a stomach ailment) after having gorged himself on iced milk and cherries at an Independence Day celebration.
Margaret (Peggy) Taylor. The official White House image is at lower-right.
Betty Taylor Bliss, daughter of the general and his wife, took on the duties as White House hostess in place of her invalid mother.
Franklin Pierce, official White House portrait, 1852, G.P.A. Healy
Franklin Pierce, G.P.A. Healy, National Portrait Gallery
Today in the music business they call them "one-hit wonders." In the American political realm they're referred to as "one term Presidents," and there have been quite a number of them, especially during the 19th-century. There were a total of eleven with an additional five more in the 20th-century. Usually it has to do with a President not winning reelection or, in a few cases, not even being re-nominated by his party he was so unpopular. That was the case with the 14th President of the United States, Franklin Pierce. Born in 1804, today, November 23, would have been his 211th birthday. His official White House portrait was painted by the inveterate presidential portrait painter, George Peter Alexander Healy (above) in 1852. Pierce's single term as President from 1853 to 1857.
Father and son portraits of Franklin Pierce, the father, Adna Tenney painted the President in 1852. His son, Ulysses D. Tenney's portrait imitates in many ways a long line of presidential paintings dating back to Gilbert Stuart's Lansdowne portrait of Washington.
If the name, Franklin Pierce, doesn't immediately bring to mind a face, it's not surprising. His portrait from the National Portrait Gallery collection (top, right) is also by Healy. Pierce was a relatively insignificant President, whose only major accomplishment in office was the successful postponement of the Civil War by signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act which was intended to placate the North and the South by allowing territories in the West to decide for themselves as to whether of not they would allow slavery. In fact, the law placated neither side, only serving to incite a bloodbath of frontier violence as the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions shot up one another in seeking to settle the matter. Incidentally, the leader of the Abolitionists was the Kansas Senator, Jim Lane (no relation), who later became a Union general. This period of turmoil has been called "Bleeding Kansas," and it made Pierce one of the most unpopular Presidents to ever serve. When his time came to seek reelection, his own party wanted nothing to do with him. Pierce's only consolation was that the man they eventually nominated, his Democratic successor, James Buchanan, is often cited as an even worse President. Having lost the nomination, President Pierce told reporters, "The only thing left to do now is get DRUNK."
The virtually unknown President by two unknown artists.
General Franklin Pierce, this 1847 etching more political propaganda than art.
Pierce was born and raised in the state of New Hampshire, the only President to ever come from that state. He was the fifth of eight children. His father, a Revolutionary War veteran, was a state legislator, deeply involved in local politics. Pierce was a graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and later studied law at Northampton Law School in Northampton, Mass-achusetts. He was admitted to the Bar in 1827 whereupon he returned to his hometown of Hillsborough to practice law. He lost his first case. Pierce eventually became a capable lawyer, but it was his deep, oratory voice and amazing ability to remember names and faces which served him well in following his father's footsteps into New Hampshire state politics. He won his first election as Hillsborough town moderator and was reelected six times. From there he went on to the state legislature, eventually to become Speaker of the House about the same time his father retired as governor of the state. Pierce eventually became on of five New Hampshire Congressmen while also serving as a member of the state militia, rising from the rank of Colonel to Brigadier General by the end of the Mexican War.
Franklin and Jane Pierce miniatures, attributed to Moses B. Russell, circa 1835
Jane Means-Appleton Pierce
Following a lackluster term in the U.S. Senate, and his service during the war, in which he was injured or ill during much of the fighting, Pierce resigned his commission and returned home to recuperate with his wife, Jane, and their three sons. Tragically, all three children died in childhood, the oldest, Benny, was killed just a few weeks after his father was elected President when the train carrying the family derailed. He was eleven years old, the only fatality in the accident. His mother never fully recovered from the loss. Chronically ill herself with tuberculosis, Jane Pierce (right) became reclusive, serving as White House hostess only on rare occasions, leaving most of the duties of First Lady to her husband's aunt. The White House staff came to refer to her as "the ghost." To this day, the White House has no official portrait of Jane Means-Appleton Pierce.
Franklin Pierce, by James Van Nuys, Rapid City, South Dakota, one of 43 life- size bronze Presidents lining the city streets.
When we think of tourism today, we often picture jet planes, SUVs overburdened with camping equipment, lavish resorts or (conversely) Motel 8. Yet tourism has been around at least as far back as Marco Polo's little jaunt to China during the 13th-century. In the U.S. it doesn't go back quite that far but, if you want to call them that, each of the European explorers we all studied in elementary history books were, in essence, tourists. Some of them even brought with them artists (in lieu of cameras). If you discount the western migration during much of the 19th-century, tourism in America didn't get much of a foothold until the advent of the transcontinental railroads, which made travel somewhat less costly, less dangerous, less strenuous, and a hell of a lot more comfortable than stage-coaches. Moreover, there was a lot of America to see, especially the diverse landscape west of the Miss-issippi. That was largely the thinking of the editors and publisher of the number one illustrated periodical of the latter half of the century, Harper's Weekly Magazine. In 1873, they decided to bankroll a couple of their artists on a year-long, cross-country trip to spark public interest in the nascent tourism industry they saw developing. Both men were French, in their thirties, trained in Paris, and most importantly, spoke English. Paul Frenzeny, the elder of the two, was best known for his draughtsmanship and woodcuts. He likely served as assistant and guide to the painter, Jules Tavernier (pronounced tah-vurn-YAY).
Tavernier was a rather scraggly-looking creature, well-suited for the American "wild" West, an excellent artist, but one with a weakness for the bottle.
Today, such an undertaking would involve a topnotch photographer and writer. They had cameras back then, of course; and quite a number of photos of the West's scenic magnificence were flowing East. The problem was that the technology for printing such photos for mass distribution simply didn't exist. Illustrations in magazines such as Harper's were mostly created using the ancient arts and crafts of the woodcut, a painstaking, time consuming process manifestly not well suited for tourism. During their journey, Frenzeny and Tavernier rode the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway from Parsons, Kansas, across Indian Territory, to Denison, Texas. From there on, their little trek had to rely on more primitive transportation as seen in Tavernier's A Prairie Windstorm (below), from 1874. The two often collaborated on their illustrations.
A Prairie Windstorm, 1874, Paul Frenzeny, Jules Tavernier. Getting there was half the fun!
Red Cloud Camp, Watercolor, Jules Tavernier
There's not much to see or paint from a train window in Missouri, Kansas, or Texas. Tavernier made do sketching Indian encampments along the way. Some, such as the Sioux Encampment (below), painted years later in 1884, are really quite well done, emphasizing an illustrator's attention to detail and au-thenticity. The winter encamp-ment, below it, probably dates from the 1873 journey west and may have, in fact, been painted while on the train (nice trick if you can do it).
The dates on Tavernier's works (when they're known at all) are somewhat "iffy." The style in his 1873 work is quite different than that of his later paintings.
Their journey ended in San Francisco where they fulfilled their commitment to Harper's and parted company. Tavernier fell in love with San Francisco, though there are few, if any works by him of the city itself. He opened a studio there for a time but found it necessary to evacuate as his creditors descended upon him. He moved further south to Monterey where he opened a second studio (the first of what became a vibrant artists' colony). Though he was always modestly successful as an artist, his alcoholism and carelessness with the modest sums he earned quickly drove him out of town. This time, he hopped a boat heading further west, bound for Hawaii.
Day and night--Wailuku Falls, Hilo, ca. 1886, pastel on paper, and Tavernier's Volcano at Night.
Probably Gehry's most famous work. Would Walt Disney have approved?
If you've ever seen one of his buildings, you won't soon forget it. If you should see a second building by the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, you'll recognize his work instantly. I suppose it might be safe to say that an architect knows when he has "arrived" when his buildings are either loved or hated. If you're rather conservative by nature--politically, economically, socially--you'll likely fall in the latter category. If you have a "progressive" bent, you'll probably find his work endlessly fascinating. You may laugh at some of his creations from time to time, maybe even scratch your head and roll your eyes, but friend or foe alike, you'll want to see more. And if you've never heard of him till now, read on. Here's everything you need to know about Frank Gehry.
Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles, 2003, Frank Gehry
When you have to consider a list of some seventy-five completed works by a single architect, it's hard to designate his or her "best" or most famous creation. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that both those terms best apply to Gehry's 2003 Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (above). First of all, a concert hall may well be an architect's most challenging type of commission. The problems, from acoustics to aesthetics and line of sight and within the auditorium, not to mention crowd flow, parking, security, and dozens of other considerations lay a heavy burden on the architectural team to "get it right." From all indications over the last twelve years, Gehry and his associates did. The other factor in such a designation is whether the particular structure is representative of the artist's work as a whole. To my eyes, the Disney Hall is pure Gehry, its only competition for the top spot coming from thousands of miles across the sea, Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain (below).
Guggenheim Bilbao, 1997, Bilbao, Spain, Frank Gehry
I have nothing against the Guggenheim Bilbao (above) as an architectural work of art. It's a beautiful building in every sense. However, Gehry, like so many other art museum architects (starting with Frank Lloyd Wright with his New York Guggenheim), has fallen into the trap of creating a building which competes for attention and excitement with its contents. NO art museum should do that. No artwork should be forced to do that. An art museum is merely a container--a housing--functioning only to preserve, protect, and pleasingly present the art within its walls while serving the immediate needs of those viewing it. Museum goers should be blissfully unaware of the building itself provided they can find the restrooms, elevators, gift shop, and food service court easily. The museum should not be ugly of course, but neither should it be "over the top" fantastical. Gehry's Bilbao extravaganza is very much within that realm.
New York by Gehry, 2007-11, Frank Gehry--76 floors in the high-rent district.
If an architect wants to be "over the top" he should reserve that desire for a building where doing so is an economic asset. That would very much be the case with the architect's 2007-11 New York by Gehry, a 76-story office and apartment tower not far from the Brooklyn Bridge at 8 Spring Street in Manhattan. Begun before the 2008 "Great Recession" and halted at thirty stories for a time, Gehry's first skyscraper has been universally praised as a welcome addition to the city's skyline. The video at the bottom gives an interesting insight into the buildings treacherous rise to such prominence. On the lower levels resides an elementary school serving the educational needs of the 904-unit luxury residential tower clad in stainless steel. Apartments range from 500 square feet (46 m2) to 1,600 square feet (150 m2), consisting of studios and one to three-bedroom units. All units are rental-only; none are available for purchase. Rates range from $3,100 for a studio apartment to $20,000 for an eight-room penthouse suite. That's per month, by the way.
They're really sturdier than they look. I love the rocking chair.
Vitra Design Museum, 1989, Frank Gehry
The Dancing Buildings, 1995, Prague, Frank Gehry
If you should need furnishings for your new digs in Gehry's residential tower, he's got you covered there too. Above are chairs and a sofa designed by Gehry. The Chairs, incidentally, are made of recycled cardboard. The sofa is of stainless steel for out on the terrace in order to match the building's exterior. The Vitra Design Museum (above, right) located in western Germany near the French border, displays Gehry's love of graceful (and often outrageous) curves. It dates from 1989 and is created from painted concrete rather than his usual stainless steel. On the whimsical side, a few hundred miles away in Prague, we find Gehry's amusing Dancing Buildings (right), dating from 1995. Seldom do you find architects with a sense of humor.
Facebook Headquarters, Menlo Park, California, Frank Gehry
Many of Gehry's architectural marvels are located near where he lives in the Los Angeles area, including his unconventional (in the sense it lacks his usual, trademark curves) Facebook Headquarters (above) in Menlo Park, California. However, if you love ribbons of colorful metal as much as Gehry, check out his Hotel Marques de Riscal (below), El Ciego, Spain. The titanium façade changes to purple as sunset progresses. It's part of his City of Wine Complex in northern Spain.
Hotel Marques de Riscal, Frank Gehry, part of the City of Wine Complex, El Ciego, Spain. The titanium façade changes to purple as sunset progresses.
Frank Gehry was born in 1929. He grew up in Toronto, Canada where he used to spend Saturdays at his grandparents' hardware store. His parents were Polish Jews who moved to Canada shortly before he was born. His grandmother used to entertain him with scraps of wood and metal with which the boy liked to construct fantasy buildings and cities. In 1947, he and his parents moved to Southern California where Gehry got a job driving a delivery truck. He studied at Los Angeles City College, eventually graduating from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture. About that same time a man some forty years older than Gehry was retiring from the army, a five-star general to become president of Columbia University in New York. His name was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He and Gehry never met, but in July of this year (2015) Gehry's final designs (below) for the Eisenhower Plaza memorial commemorating the life of our 34th president were approved. Once funds are raised, the memorial will reside in front of the U.S. Department of Education on Independence Avenue Southwest.
Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial. The Department of Education building is visible through metal mesh tapestries depicting Eisenhower's life. The statuary group is based upon the famous D-Day photo of Eisenhower encouraging the troops.
Frank Gehry's Binocular Building, Santa Monica, California, part of a three-building complex currently leased by Google.
Now known as the Tatlin Tower, there appears to have been two somewhat different versions, a vertical double helix (left) and a leaning single helix, (right).
How many of you have planned some impressive work of art designed to make an impact on your otherwise lackluster career as an artist, only to just never get around to actually creating it? I know I have...several times. I've even completed one or two such projects, not that either have had a resounding impact upon my reputation as an artist. Around 1910, the Soviet Union planned a grandiose centerpiece for it's upcoming Third International Congress of the Communist Party the following year. It was to be built from iron, glass, and steel. In its materials, shape and function, the construction was seen as a towering symbol of Soviet modernity, soaring some 1,312 feet high, and dwarfing the Eiffel Tower by a third. It was to serve as party headquarters, a convention center, and information (propaganda) center, topped off by a broadcasting mast. In design (above), it was a spiraling, cylindrical affair. The various geometrically shaped parts inside its helix would spin around, occasionally meeting to connect the branches of government that were to be housed there. It was intended for Petrograd (St. Petersburg), then the capital city of Russia. Of course, given the cash poor state of Soviet Union just three years after the Bolshevik Revolution, there was no way in hell the damned thing was ever going to get built. This must have greatly disappointed its brash, young, designer/engineer/architect/artist, Vladimir Tatlin.
Vladimir Tatlin was obviously influence by Cubism (as seen in his self-portraits), but his main love was a movement called "Constructivism," a term he nonetheless rejected.
There appears to have been two different design proposals. The earliest was probably the vertical double-helix tower (top left) followed by the more radical single-helix, leaning tower, (top, right). I'm not positive, but my guess is the single-helix design constituted the original proposal while the double-helix evolved as a design refinement after it became obvious the tower would never be built. Housed within the tower were three geometric structures, a cube, intended to make a complete revolution once a year; a pyramid, its speed set to revolve once a month; topped with a cylinder that would complete one revolution per day (the Russians were big on revolutions at the time). Quite apart from its astronomical cost, it's doubtful how practical the whole concept would have been.
Artist's Model, 1910, Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Tatlin was born in 1885. His father was a railway engineer in Kharkiv (eastern) Ukraine. His mother was a poet. Tatlin began as an icon painter in Moscow, where he attended the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was also a professional musician, playing the Ukrainian-bandurist (a plucked string instrument). Tatlin's earliest painted work dates from about 1910, his Artist's Model (above). The Fish Monger (below) dates from the following year. Both are Expressionist, though the latter has a distinctly Cubist quality at a time when Picasso and Braque, in Paris, were still working out the finer points of the style.
The Fish Monger, 1911, Vladimir Tatlin
To make ends meet, while waiting for his "big break" which turned out not to be all that big, Tatlin worked designing sets and costumes for the Russian theater as seen in his monumental designs for Glinka's Ivan Susanin (below), from 1912-14 and his costume design, for A Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin, right), from 1913. During the years prior to the Revolution, Tatlin was also regarded as a progenitor of Con-structivist art with his counter-reliefs and three-dimensional constructions made of wood and metal. Though he did not regard himself as a Con-structivist, and objected to many of the movement's basic tenets, Tatlin conceived these sculp-tures as a means of questioning the traditional ideals of art. Later prominent constructivists included Varvara Stepanova, Alexander Rodchenko, Manuel Rendón Seminario, JoaquÃn Torres GarcÃa, László Moholy-Nagy, Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo.
Sketch for stage set, Glinka's Ivan Susanin, 1912-14, Vladimir Tatlin
After the disappointment in not seeing his spiraling tower rise from the broad plazas of St. Petersburg, Tatlin returned to painting, finding much to admire in the Constructivist tendencies involved with Cubism as seen in his Constructivist, Obra (below), from 1920.
Cubist Constructivism, Obra, 1920, Vladimir Tatlin.
During the 1930s, Tatlin began to turn his design and engineering skills toward manned flight (despite the fact that he was largely retreading over disappointing science and aeronautical engineering from some thirty years earlier). His model making skills, demonstrated in his conception and design of the Tatlin Tower, stood him in good stead as he tried getting back to the basics of human-powered flight (below). Unfortunately, neither his humans, their muscles, nor his designs were up to the task. After the war, Tatlin returned to painting, this time in a more realistic form of Expressionism as seen in his alarmingly raw Meat (below) from 1947. Vladimir Tatlin died in 1953 at the age of sixty-eight, having never seen his tower rise higher than a couple dozen feet in the form of two models, one in London, the other at the Pompidou Center in Paris. Tatlin's influence has, nonetheless, made itself felt as the result of lasting designs of his Modern Art furniture (bottom). His Tatlin Chair is at bottom, right, while the red sofa (bottom, left) is a 1989, Tatlin-inspired, piece by the Italian designers, Canarizi and Semprini, manufactured by the furniture company, Edra. It would appear to be an ingenious way to torment overnight guests. "Sure, you're welcome to sleep on the sofa". The original model of that sofa just sold for over five-thousand dollars.
